Today Shaun Murphy plays Marco Fu of Hong Kong in Telford with the goal of becoming one of the nine select players who can add the World and UK Championship double to their list of accomplishments in snooker. Murphy, who left the first four ranking tournaments of the season as soon as possible to get back to form, defeated Stephen Maguire 9–4 to get to the UK Championship final.
After a memorable first session, Murphy took a 6-2 lead. Despite Maguire scoring two hundreds on the restart, the Scot was unable to duplicate his victory from their previous meeting at the same level of the competition.
The 2005 world champion Murphy remarked, “I felt as fresh as a daisy because all I’ve done for the last four months is watch other people play on television.”
With the help of his fiancée, who recently earned a master’s degree in supply chain logistics, and a world champion blacksmith who was formerly an apprentice bus conductor, Fu is poised for a career-defining achievement.
Shirley, Fu’s girlfriend who is attending her first event, and Terry Griffiths, the 1979 champion of The Crucible, who is widely acknowledged as the sport’s most knowledgeable coach, are part of Fu’s support system.
Fu had a disappointing start to the season after winning his maiden world-ranking championship, the Grand Prix, fourteen months prior, but cue-action treatment was not accessible at the Matchroom Club in Llanelli because Griffiths was recuperating from an illness. Fu didn’t have the foundation for a return to peak performance until Griffiths started working again. “Technically, I’d slipped into a few bad habits but I spent a couple of days with Terry and now I’m hitting the ball much better,” Fu said.
